


Our Perfect Ending

by Essyllt



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode Fix-it, Even Rarepairs Deserve Tenderness, Everybody Lives, F/M, For the Sake of Hugs, Glossing Over Canon Events, M/M, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:09:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27689423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Essyllt/pseuds/Essyllt
Summary: This is how it goes, on a spaceship hurtling towards a black hole: Missy holds the Master close, and feels him tremble in her arms.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Twelfth Doctor/Missy, Twelfth Doctor/The Master (Simm)/Missy
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	Our Perfect Ending

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a birthday present for Tania, who deserves to see more tenderness in her DW ships.
> 
> I hope you enjoy <3
> 
> This is an AU from s10e12, "The Doctor Falls", though it glosses over any actual plot resolution of the episode. Title is taken from that episode, specificially from the Master's line:
> 
> "You see, Missy, this is where we've always been going. This is our perfect ending."

This is how it goes, on a spaceship hurtling towards a black hole: Missy holds the Master close, and feels him tremble in her arms. She is reaching for the thin blade hidden in her sleeve, and in another version of this timeline, this embrace ends in blood and regret. For a moment she feels it, the twists and echoes of this moment plucking at her sleeve. She feels how this is expected to go, and then her fingers fall away from the hilt. She reached up instead, and cradles his neck, and gives just a little twist. The Master slumps, unconscious, and she even takes care to support his head when she lowers him to the ground. All around her, she can feel time bending, stretched to a breaking point, shifting and curling in new directions. It hurts and itches, the way it always does whenever there are versions of oneself too tangled up in the same timeline. But she is Missy, and she was also him, the raging Master who burnt like the sun.

No one tells her what to do, least of all the universe. She goes back to the Doctor, back to the burning ship, and tries her hardest to play this game of his, where they care about all these small beings and their little lives. She still can't see the point of them, most of the time. Still, they gather all the humans and their children, and they take everyone away in her - their - Tardis. They even bring the Doctor's little companions. Somewhat predictably, there is a sequence of coincidences by which they figure out how to turn his small human back into a normal human shape instead of a Cyberman one. Even Missy has to admit that it is an improvement. When they leave the other humans on a new planet, when they smile and cry and wave in goodbye, Missy only frowns at them. Still, it can't be denied that there is something satisfying about the whole affair. Somethings that feels very much like contentment, curled small and warm in her chest.

The Doctor, insufferable bastard, is wearing a smug grin because they know each other all too well. "I still think about killing them whenever they're particularly annoying", she informs him, which somehow just makes him tuck his hand in the crook of her arm as they walk back into the Tardis. "Ah, but you don't do it, Missy, and that's the important part, isn't it? Your actions and not your deepest, darkest thoughts - everyone has those from time to time."

"Well, dearest, this one certainly acts on those thoughts", Missy points out, later, when they are left alone in the Tardis. Doctor and Master, just like back in their schooldays, Doctor and Missy just like any other evening back in the vault. Except here is herself, and himself, still unconscious and propped up in an armchair. "Wake him up", the Doctor says, and at her raised eyebrows: "We can't have him lolling around in that chair forever now, can we? Since I can hear you thinking it, I also rather think stuffing him in the vault in your place not viable either, so -"

"He'll try to murder us both", Missy points out, with some amusement, even as she reaches down. Not that she would ever begrudge themselves a little murder attempt. It barely means anything to him, to this version of herself that is all broken shards of hurt and burning, burning rage. Missy remembers being him, and she admires his fire, but she would not like to become him ever again.

The Master does not immediately move against them. Instead, he blinks, once and then twice, and looks over at them. "I'm not dead", he says, and for once Missy cannot read the expression on this old face of hers at all. "Why didn't you kill me? It makes no sense whatsoever. Of course this idiot Doctor wouldn't do it, but you're me, you're smart, you'd know I'm too dangerous to have around, you kill me and then I become you, that's how it's supposed to be-" He breaks off because Missy has moved over to pull him back into an embrace, a mirror of his last moments before unconsciousness, and oh, he's shaking, this bright and burning and broken self of hers. He's shaking because he does not comprehend her and her actions at all, because he cannot conceive of a version of themselves that does not want to destroy every single thing within reach. Missy holds him without speaking. She cannot think of any words to comfort him, beyond the solid reality of her own existence.

"I wouldn't have let her kill you anyway", the Doctor says gruffly, like the fool that he is (as if he could have stopped Missy at any point). He has moved closer, not quite touching, oh, his expression is entirely too open, looking at them both. Sentimental fool, indeed. "As if you'd have any chance to be dangerous, with Missy and me around." Missy rolls her eyes, since neither them can actually see her face with how she is still holding the Master close. Still, when the Doctor steps up behind her, to touch first the Master's cheek and then rest his hand on her shoulder, she shifts a little and frees her right hand, their fingers touching. The Master watches this, hungry and disbelieving and failing at any attempt to put a convincing sneer on his face when he says: "You are both idiots."

He still half in her arms, shifting as if some part of him wants to push her away while another pulls closer. Missy cannot remember his actions and thoughts very clearly, but she remembers how it felt the first time the Doctor reached out to her in the Vault. How it felt to be touched, with trust and gentleness between them, for the first time in such a very long while. It very nearly unmade her, the realisation that this was not forever lost in the ashes of their shared past. She cannot imagine what effect it would have now, on this self, if she told him now. If she tried to explain that it is possible to break the twisting, self-destructive dance around the Doctor's orbit. That the hand that the Doctor has been reaching out towards them, all this time, is not a mockery or a taunt or an old wound torn open again and again. That it is possible to reach out, and take that offer. To break the circle and become a different self. Missy does not think this Master is ready to understand that, not yet. But she holds him closer, and feels the Doctor's steady presence beside, and thinks, _We will just have to show you how._


End file.
